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This is an invitation, an invitation to MIT. An invitation to stand up for science against the greatest threat civilization has ever known. An invitation to do more about climate change together than any one of us can achieve alone.

Following last year’s campus-wide Climate Change Conversation, President Reif has now committed to deciding this fall semester how (or if) our university will take action against climate change. In the run-up to this potentially game-changing moment of decision, help us tip the balance by joining MIT Climate Countdown – a series of public events, starting September 27, culminating in a rally on October 2, the day of the MIT Corporation’s Annual Board Meeting. So mark the Countdownon your calendar, and then we’ll explain…

Freshman to faculty, physicists to policy wonks, and nano-engineers to urban planners – we were your typical MIT bunch. We were short on time but big on ambition. We wanted to do science that matters. But three years ago, as we worked in our labs on solar cells and batteries, or took a class in energy policy, or petitioned our dorm to turn off its lights, each of us was coming to a startling realization: when it comes to climate change, the singular crisis of our time, MIT has no plan. No strategy for how our energy technologies will ever make it out of the lab and into a world where fossil fuels are propped up by trillions of dollars in subsidies every year. No vision for how to implement the carbon pricing mechanisms our economists propose, with a Congress that doesn’t even believe global warming is caused by humans. And, unlike every other major university, no goal whatsoever for reducing our own campus carbon footprint.

But we were also coming to realize MIT’s enormous potential. As individuals, most of us are powerless to tackle the lack of societal and political will that underpin climate inaction. But through our Institute, we have a megaphone to public and political opinion and an immense capacity to effect change. MIT could be our most powerful tool, if only we could unlock it.

We had no choice. As scientists and engineers, advocacy and politics definitely don’t come easily to us, but as Albert Einstein once put it, “Those who have the privilege to know, have the duty to act”. And so, our improbable group of nerds-turned-activists did just that, calling on President Reif to make climate action the generational mission of our Institute. We researched and outreached. Listened and negotiated. Postered and tabled. Trialed and errored. And in May 2014, President Reif responded, launching the MIT Climate Change Conversation: a year-long campus-wide discussion on the actions the Institute could take against climate change. The mountain was beginning to move.

And in the process, we met you. Thousands of students, staff, faculty, alumni, and local community members impatient to help MIT lead. Cambridge City Council went as far as to pass resolution R-10, officially encouraging MIT to take bolder climate action. “We are diverse in our academic majors, personal interests, political views, religious beliefs, and cultural backgrounds,” 28 student groups wrote to President Reif this summer. “Yet when it comes to climate change, we are united.” Yes, we have different ideas about the best technologies and policies. And yes, we’re each passionate about working on different things. But we’re all in this together. We’re all looking west, at the armies of firefighters risking their lives in a war against endless wildfire. We’re all looking east, at the unfathomable millions of Syrian refugees – the victims of a conflict catalyzed by years without rain. And we’re all looking to the future, wary that unlike politicians, physics does not negotiate. Wary that the climate clock is ticking. As President Reif’s own advisory committee reported, “Perils ahead dwarf risks to the Institute in navigating this politically charged issue, such that even exceptional measures should not be eschewed.” Our biggest triumph has been to avoid false dichotomies. To ask instead, “what all can we do?”

This fall, after years of negotiations, President Reif is finally committed to deciding how (or if) our Institute will take action. The whole of MIT’s history is hung on a timeline of “moments of decision” like this. But the climate question is far from a done deal.

Change can be hard and slow for any institution. And with the likes of climate science disinformation bankroller David Koch on MIT’s Board, and with our Institute more dependent on corporate funding than any other university in the country, anything is possible (or not). Will we take tokenistic steps (a new climate course here, a few solar cells there)? Or will we take leadership commensurate with the urgency and magnitude of this crisis? We don’t know, and we’re not going to sit around to find out. As we begin the Climate Countdown to MIT’s next great moment of decision, we want President Reif to know that we’ve got his back. That all of us – students, staff, faculty, alumni, community members – are united behind bold, multi-faceted climate action. We won’t accept anything less because our science and our futures are on the line.

So here’s the plan. Starting September 27, MIT Climate Countdown will begin. A week-long series of events showcasing how each of us is taking climate action – a chance to collaborate, organize, and mobilize. Then, come noon on October 2, the day of the MIT Corporation’s Annual Board Meeting, we’ll put business-as-usual on hold. We’ll leave the library, step out of lab, and postpone our meetings. And as our leaders convene, we will (with your help) gather in our hundreds to urge them to find the moral courage to do what science demands and what President Reif’s own committee has recommended. For two hours on October 2, we won’t be doing science – we’ll be standing up for it. See you there.

Our ask

In June 2015, 29 student groups came together to urge President Reif to “make climate change action the defining legacy of [his] presidency and the generational mission of this Institute.” This fall, we MIT students, staff, faculty, alumni, and local community members unite to reaffirm this climate call. Let us take courageous climate actions, which can include but not be limited to:

Divest

Reinvest

Reinvent

Transform

our campus into a living laboratory for sustainability and efficiency, with bold emissions reductions targets.

Engage

with our public and politicians.

33 prominent climate scientists and advocates have joined our call!

“In the coming weeks, as your administration formulates its strategy for tackling climate change, we will join your students, staff, faculty, and alumni in the Climate Countdown to MIT’s next great moment of decision.”

“What’s the use of having developed a science well enough to make predictions if, in the end, all we’re willing to do is stand around and wait for them to come true?”– F. Sherwood Rowland, Nobel Laureate